Pity For Vick Won't Do The Trick

I really have tried to avoid saying anything about Michael Vick, the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons who has just accepted a plea deal involving prison time for his involvement in a dogfighting ring, since that really isn’t the sort of thing I want to devote time to here. But after reading this HuffPo column from Earl Ofari Hutchinson about Vick today, I felt like I had to respond (and some of this may sound strange coming from me, I’ll warn you in advance).

My gripe with Hutchinson can be boiled down to this single quote in his post…

“Should we feel pity for Michael Vick? Yes and no.”

How is there a possible yes answer to that question?

How did Michael Vick not totally squander a lucrative living and a position of influence granted among media personalities and other figures in the public eye only by virtue of the fact that he can run with and pass a football?

Is it because he’s black? (cue the dramatic incidental theme music…).

Spare me the “200-plus-years-of-oppression” rap. This is the implied message from posts or columns like those of Hutchinson (and by the way, I would say the same thing if we were talking about Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley).

Yes, Hutchinson is admitting that Vick’s actions were cruel and stupid, at the very least (I can pretty much take the “alleged” out of that sentence since Vick has copped a plea), as he should. But the very title of the post, “Crucifying Michael Vick,” creates the victimhood theme here that Hutchinson wants to feed above all others.

And I don’t care what race or ethnicity were talking about; when it comes to someone who has perpetrated a crime or is accused of doing so, and they then seek to play the “pity” card with our media, they should be roundly criticized for doing so.

(Also, Hutchinson notes that Vick was “fingered by his pals,” or something like that. I can tell Hutchinson right now that one notable exception to that generalization is Donavan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. McNabb, in addition to being a better player in the same position as Vick than Vick could ever be in his life, also has shown his typical class in standing by Vick and hoping for the best in this mess.)

When it comes to legal issues involving people of color, though, one exception in my mind is the case of Kia Vaughn, a member of the Rutgers women’s basketball team who is suing Don Imus for defaming her with the media personality’s infamous “nappy headed hos” remark. Vaughn merely wanted to pursue an education and play basketball and sought no notoriety whatsoever, but Imus changed all of that by his conduct (and of course, leave it to the freeper media shock troops to leap into action in defense of someone who has granted a forum for them in the past).

Finally, I want to point out something apart from the Vick mess, and that is the fact that Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky has written a column criticizing Vick here.

I have a question for some of Bykofsky’s peers, though.

Where is the column criticizing Stu Bykofsky?

You remember what Bykofsky said almost two weeks ago, don’t you? “I’m thinking another 9/11 would help America.”

After writing something like that, how the hell can this guy even imagine that he would have the right to criticize anyone else?

I’ve jumped all over Michael Smerconish in the past for other reasons, but he seems to be the local media personality who takes it upon himself to carry the All Things 9/11 banner when it suits him. And to be fair, he has contributed to the 9/11 Memorial Garden, and I would guess that he’s helped the families of those lost on that day in other ways that may or may not be publicized.

But unless he’s criticized Bykofsky on his local radio show (I’ll never listen to that awful station to hear those clowns, so I wouldn’t know; I except Sid Mark from that, though), he’s been silent on the matter as far as I know. And even if he had, he should have followed that up with a column telling Bykofsky that he’s an idiot, and I haven’t been able to find one.

So does Bykofsky skate, then? You can just abuse your position as spokesperson of a fashion by advocating mass murder with impunity?

Swell…

Update: And speaking of the Daily News (and, by association, the Stinky Inky), it seems that Brian Tierney is going to sell the building that houses the employees of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. (here).

Well, I know that 20th and Lehigh streets is an “iconic location” since Connie Mack Stadium, the former home of the Phillies, once resided there, but I don’t think I’d want a newspaper staff to work in an area without shelter and busted chain link fence, cracked concrete and broken glass, even though, to Tierney’s way of thinking, it would be cost efficient I suppose (photos of other proposed locations appear below).